They just need a playmaker and someone who can score as a distant third option. They player doesn’t have to be a good playmaker..just find Maya when she runs off of screens and get the ball to Sylvia in scoring position. If they still had Renee, they’d still be in the playoffs.

_________________“Anyone point out that a Donald Trump anagram is ‘Lord Dampnut’”- Colin Mochrie

I think the whole Howard episode shows how inexact talent evaluation is. Reeve obviously misjudged Howard despite seeing her in games and in practice for 2 seasons. However, there certainly other examples of coaches ignoring talent right on their bench.

Too make things worse Reeve also didn't think a team with Breanna Stewart on it would ever be capable of being good, and a team with just Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles and 9 to 10 corpses and/or elderly women from a retirement home would still be a top team in the WNBA, otherwise she should've done better than the infamous futile pick swap.

Ah crap! Reeve probably wanted to help Flagrant Fowles get a head start on her mortician career by making her play with a team full of nothing but corpses this year. R.I.P. Minnesota Lynx.

.

Sounds like we should change the name of the team to Cheryl Reeve's Grand-Mother-Chuckers.....

I think the whole Howard episode shows how inexact talent evaluation is. Reeve obviously misjudged Howard despite seeing her in games and in practice for 2 seasons. However, there certainly other examples of coaches ignoring talent right on their bench.

Too make things worse Reeve also didn't think a team with Breanna Stewart on it would ever be capable of being good, and a team with just Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles and 9 to 10 corpses and/or elderly women from a retirement home would still be a top team in the WNBA, otherwise she should've done better than the infamous futile pick swap.

Ah crap! Reeve probably wanted to help Flagrant Fowles get a head start on her mortician career by making her play with a team full of nothing but corpses this year. R.I.P. Minnesota Lynx.

Seattle may not win the next three titles...Reeve is probably thilled they lost in the first round.....what do you smoke or take to make you think like that

Then why would Reeve get rid of Howard for nothing instead of giving her any chance on the Lynx? Did she figure if Howard played well, it would make Brunson look bad by making her look replaceable (even though Brunson is at the end of her career anyways)? I waited the entire season to see if Kizer, Miyem, and Tanisha Wright would have more of an impact than Howard, like we were meant to believe, and never saw it. Teams that are trying to win titles aren't supposed to weaken their roster and make other teams stronger (which obviously makes your chances of winning much lower), or throw a season away to "tank" for a top six draft pick.

Kizer suffered that injury early on and was not 100%. Sure she is using this time off to get healthy and will return to the WNBA next season.

Augustus still shot 47% (50% last year) from the field with over 30% shooting from 3. And with the condensed schedule one would expect older players to see a drop this year.

But that is far from the numbers of a player who is washed up. She is just not the first or second option anymore and will disappear at times (likely due to fatigue).

But as an off the bench player? Someone who can be put in to boost scoring with the second team for 15-20 minutes a night? That is still a powerful weapon.

I did not say she was washed up. My response was directed at Shades, who responded to Clay K as follows:

Shades wrote:

ClayK wrote:

you need need a player who will get 20 if I don't pay full attention to her.

Sounds like Augustus to me. Maybe she’ll step up her conditioning this off season.

My comment was as follows:

Quote:

August has not averaged more than 11.2 ppg since 2015, when she averaged 13.8 ppg.

In terms of regular season games:
-- Augustus scored more than 15 points in a game three times this year - 16, 16, and 21.
-- August did not score 20 points in any regular season game in 2017. She scored more than 15 points five times.
-- In 2016, she had eight games of 15 or more points, with 4 at 20 or more.

Augustus is not washed up. But she is not a 20 ppg scorer, nor is she a consistent threat to score 20 ppg.

Then it would be Reeve's fault too, because how hard would it be to promise her a lot of playing time this year (which I thought would've been a no-brainer in a condensed season), the future starting job when Brunson retires (funny how Brunson's future is a question mark now—I figured taking an unnecessary gamble on trading Howard would only make the any tiny amount of sense if she's guaranteed to play at least 3 more years), and give her the max-contract she wanted, in exchange for not being a starter for now?

She didn't demand a trade. Reeve didn't want to pay what SEA was willing to pay.

I still don't get the logic behind how a team that supposedly is supposed to be trying to win a title would think the best way to accomplish that goal is by weakening their own roster and strengthening another's team by getting rid of a good player for nothing, especially in a league where getting good players is hard enough to begin with.

She didn't demand a trade. Reeve didn't want to pay what SEA was willing to pay.

Didn't want to or couldn't afford to?

_________________“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
― Maya Angelou
SO ...I lost a bet with Rock about how many wins Chicago would get this year. My punishment - T. Young as my avatar. Well it could be worse!

Which leaves $291,455 left until the $976,300 salary cap, or enough money to give a max (or near max) to Montgomery (max would be $115,500? but she did sign for $105,000 with Atlanta) (or then D-Rob's $108,000 salary), a max to Howard ($113,000), and a cheap vet/rookie to make 11 players. But either Reeve was either offended at the idea of Howard making more money than her starters who are signed for slightly under max and/or went crazy because she basically made signing Tanisha Wright her number one off-season priority, even though, based on the $93,000 she was signed for this year, she wouldn't have been near affordable if you accounted for how much it would take to realistically take to re-sign Montgomery and Howard (Reeve went after Wright before she knew Montgomery was going to sign with Atlanta).

If the Lynx failed this year because their guard depth was bad, at least then they'd only have one position to worry about, instead of now having to worry about multiple positions for the future.

You know what, this why I shouldn’t comment regarding other teams rosters.

Just read the Star Tribune where it stated:

Quote:

The Lynx couldn’t fit Howard’s salary demands under their salary cap

I apologize for misspeaking, was trying to give Reeve the benefit of the doubt.

She couldn't fit under the salary cap because Reeve decided signing Tanisha Wright had precedence over anything else (Wright only officially signed with the Lynx later than the other moves because she was busy with her assistant coaching gig). I looked back at articles from earlier and found: This is a veteran we thought was a must-have for our offseason. Even if Renee [Montgomery, who signed with Atlanta] came back. Tanisha gives us our best chance to win this year. which means Reeve didn't necessarily choose D-Rob over Howard, like the Lynx Propaganda Machine tried to spin it later (and if it was true, I could live with, because I am a D-Rob fan, and next year's draft would be a chance to get a new PF—starting PGs are harder to come by), but she basically chose Wright over Howard. 😵 Well, Reeve did sign Kizer and Miyem instead to replace Howard's production at a cheaper price.

I tried to give Reeve the benefit of the doubt too, but that just made me still poor and being made fun of for waffling. At least thanks to the Megdal spreadsheet, I figured it out for sure, because I should've figured right away Wright was an excessively expensive signing.

Cheryl Reeve is the only person in the history of the universe stupid enough to think she has to resort to tanking when Maya and Fowles are in their prime, unless Reeve is so stupid, Maya Moore is planning on leaving the Lynx to play for a real, legitimate WNBA team in the Atlanta Dream next year, a team with a real head coach in Nicki Collen, instead of wanting to have her career continue to be ruined like it was this year in Minnesota.
I am outraged because I can't make fun of the Mercury for having to tank in 2012, because Reeve is an ever worse tanker, and I can't make fun of the Mercury for trading Courtney Williams for nothing anymore, because they at least they have the #13 pick next year to show for her, while Reeve has just the #16 pick for one of the league's now top superstars in Natasha Howard. 😡 Reeve is the only coach/GM in the WNBA who would rather get rid of great players instead of play them, so her team can lose and get higher draft picks instead of attempt to win more WNBA titles. Which makes no sense because the 2019 Draft is deep enough the Lynx would be just fine if they had the #11 or #12 pick instead of the #6 pick. What an idiot. Reeve might be the worst GM in the history of Minnesota sports, and we had David Kahn! 😂

Anyone else have this mental image of an angst-ridden SpaceJunkie sitting alone in a dark room lit only by candlelight, listening to Dashboard Confessional while writing bad love poetry to Natasha Howard?

Question, would Howard have done as well with the Lynx as she has done with the Storm?. She has a lot more freedom in the lane at the Storm as they don't have a big like Syl in there. This free flowing game of long versatile players is fun to watch and a winning style.

I think Space Junkie is really Cheryl's Mom and just wants her darling daughter to retire so she can come home and take care of her.

_________________“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
― Maya Angelou
SO ...I lost a bet with Rock about how many wins Chicago would get this year. My punishment - T. Young as my avatar. Well it could be worse!

Question, would Howard have done as well with the Lynx as she has done with the Storm?. She has a lot more freedom in the lane at the Storm as they don't have a big like Syl in there. This free flowing game of long versatile players is fun to watch and a winning style.

The teams are also at opposite ends of the pace of play statistic. Howard seems to thrive most when she can run, and that just wouldn't be the case in Minnesota since the team is not built for that.

Question, would Howard have done as well with the Lynx as she has done with the Storm?. She has a lot more freedom in the lane at the Storm as they don't have a big like Syl in there. This free flowing game of long versatile players is fun to watch and a winning style.

No. Firstly because you need the opportunity, and she would've continued to be behind Brunson for most of the season (even Seattle/Hughes got a little lucky on that one - it looked like the plan was to start Langhorne and bring Howard off the bench, but Lang got hurt early, and Howard played too well to let her back in). Secondly because she'd never totally won Reeve's trust (hence not wanting to pay her). And then, as you mention, just not necessarily fitting the system as well as she has in Seattle.

It would've taken an early-season injury to Brunson to open the door, and even then I doubt it would've gone as well for her this year as it did in Seattle.